Saturday, October 11, 2014

The San Francisco Giants defeated
the Washington Nationals in four games to advance to the NLCS again.They won the World Series in 2010 and 2012 so
if that streak continues they will win it again in 2014.They are in the NLCS to face the only other
team that has represented the NL in the World Series since 2009.It is amazing how dominant the Giants and
Cardinals have been.The Giants
continued to rely on their pitching especially ace Madison Bumgarner.They were close games, the Giants never have
the best hitting but they have enough of it to win.

There was a marathon 18 inning game
that the Giants were able to win.The
Giants have a winning pedigree and have been in this position so much that they
don't get rattled and they know how to win.The Giants have a winning pedigree.They have to continue to rely on their pitching in the next series.Bumgarner, Peavy, Tim Hudson and their
bullpen.They do have Hunter Pence,
Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey to carry the offense.Brandon Belt has provided some good offensive
moments and Brandon Crawford had some postseason success as well.It should be a very good series with the
Cardinals as they have a similar winning pedigree and anything can happen in
October. It is pretty much two evenly
matched teams and it should be a lot of fun in the NLDS.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

The St. Louis Cardinals defeated
the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games to advance to their fourth straight
NLCS.It is the first time a team has
appeared in four straight LCS since the 1998-2001 New York Yankees.The St. Louis Cardinals don't seem to have
the best team but they are always there.The Cardinals have a great business model though.They have a lot of young guys that are
inexpensive that they work in mainly through their own system.The Cardinals of course sign some free agents
like Matt Holliday but he even comparably isn't that bad of a contract.

The Cardinals won this series
though mainly for one reason.I give
them credit and lots of it for never panicking, for coming back in the late
innings.Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers
though blew two games.He is the best
pitcher in baseball, he had an incredible year but he had a 6-1 lead in game
one of the series and blew that in a horrendous seventh inning and then in game
four he had a 2-0 lead and was cruising along and blew that in the seventh
inning.The worst part is that he gave
up the game winning three run homer to Matt Adams.He hasn't given up a homerun to a left handed
batter in two years and never off of his curveball.Adams also wasn't hitting that great this
season but he had his big moment in game four.

The Dodgers also had no one to
trust out of the bullpen other than their closer.Jansen though the closer only got into one
game.It was a contrast of styles as the
Dodgers are a free spending big time organization and then there are the
Cardinals who don't spend that much money but keep on turning up in the
NLCS.It is amazing that the biggest
spenders this year didn't make it out of the first round if they made it to the
postseason at all.The New York Yankees
and Boston Red Sox both missed the playoffs.The Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Dodgers were
all bounced in the first round.What
does this teach us?The Cardinals are a
team to be modeled after and the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles who
will meet in the ALCS are more teams like the Cardinals then the biggest
spending teams.It will be interesting
going forward if more and more teams act like the Cardinals.It will be really interesting to see if the
big spenders act more like them or if they keep doing what they know which is
to spend more money and hope for a different outcome next season.The Cardinals will meet up with the San
Francisco Giants who have won the World Series twice in the last four
years.This would be their third time in
five years if they end up winning it all this year.

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About Me

I am a 31 year old male who is married with a baby girl on the way. I love sports and if you see by my blog under my links I am a huge sports fan. Baseball and the Yankees are my favorite. I am a season ticket holder for the Yankees. I live in wayne,NJ.